Today is the day! Welcome to @ARRAYNow’s Film Fellowship.
60+ film directors tweet directly with filmlovers all day!
All your q’s about movies. Answered by the folks who make them. Use hashtag #ARRAYNow.
And thanks to our pals at @Twitter for the custom emoji + all the love!
17 team members at @ARRAYNow have worked tirelessly to put this virtual event together. I thank the good folks of ARRAY in programming, marketing, production, post, publicity, social media, philanthropy, operations for embracing this idea with such enthusiasm. You are stellar. xo
And thanks to our pals at @Twitter who stepped up in a major way with support and elbow grease and ideas and friendship. We appreciate you all. Thank you for being such a good partner to use on this idea! #ARRAYNow
To get started, I present you with the dedicated hashtag #ARRAYNow
This is your key to the conversation. Use the hashtag after your question so the director can see you. Just tag them by their handle. Then add the hashtag.
They will try to answer as many as possible!
The team at @ARRAYNow created our invite list to feature women directors + directors of color. Some famous ones are joining us. Some emerging voices will join. All have made films that represent the whole wide world. All of us deserve to see ourselves fully on film. #ARRAYNow
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In 2010, I got a call from @BET. They heard I’d made an indie documentary about LA hip hop the year before. They offered me a doc on women in hip hop. It was my first paying directing job. I remember crying with joy. And hope.
With momentum from BET, got a job from @Essence to direct the 2010 ESSENCE MUSIC FEST. Had no clue what I was doing, but did it. 16 cameras in the Superdome. Still one of my faves.
That year, I also made a short doc about Katrina survivors for @tvonetv.
All along, I was taking a script I’d written to studios with the help of Gina + Reggie Bythewood. No one bit.
Started studying indie scripts. Wrote I WILL FOLLOW, used my savings, bartered equipment, distributed within my community, Ebert championed it.
Five yrs ago today, @ManohlaDargis wrote this feature on me. SELMA was coming out on the heels of Ferguson, another community ignited by tragedy. Tension was in the air. I was worried black folks may not accept a new version of King. Turns out that’d be the least of my worries.
This front page Arts & Leisure piece, which is big deal in the PR world, came out on the same day that Oprah hosted a gorgeous gospel brunch celebration for the film. I’ll remember this moment with @repjohnlewis forever. I thought things were going pretty well for SELMA.
Then, the cast and I wore “I Can’t Breathe” shirts to our NYC premiere. One Oscar pundit wrote that the protest was inappropriate and would cost us a nomination. I recall thinking that was ridiculous. That we weren’t getting a nod anyway and why was this man stirring nonsense.
In 1972, William Gunn, a prolific black playwright, was approached with the idea of making a "black vampire” movie. Gunn proceeded to make a stunning film decades ahead of its time and largely overlooked by cinephiles then and now, the mesmerizing: GANJA AND HESS. 1+
Despite being the only American film to screen at Critics Week at Cannes in 1973, Bill Gunn’s GANJA AND HESS was largely dismissed by most white American critics and lumped into the category of blaxploitation films. They didn’t get it. Couldn’t get. Didn’t want to get it.
GANJA AND HESS director Bill Gunn wrote a letter to the editor of the @NYTimes in 1973: “There are times when the white critic must sit down and listen. If he cannot listen and learn, then he must not concern himself with black creativity.
I’ve been on a plane all morning. Just landed. Trying to make it home. Feel like I want to scream. And rage. And cry. I usually slip in and out of airports easily. Today, 3 different people come up to me - and gave me fuel. This just happened. First was a white man. Early 30s...
Both reaching for our bags in the overhead he said: “I’m not usually this guy, but please keep doing what you do. We need to hear voices like yours. And I need to listen.” I could feel his heart. Grappling with the moment in his own skin. We spoke for a bit and then deplaned.
The second person was Latina. I’m walking through the terminal. She was young. Early 20s. She just walked right in front of me. And stopped. With tears in her eyes. All I could do was hug her and try to hold in my own. She just whispered thank you. I thanked her too. We parted.
Now watching STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON. Deserved so much more than it got from the Powers That Be. Or shall I say The Powers That Used To Be. The direction by F. Gary Gray is beautiful. Libatique murders the shots. Performances are stellar. Got one nod. Problematic. #WhoDecides
Going on a little rant about F. Gary Gray. If the industry was at all fair, he’d be a household name. But it ain’t, so he ain’t. I remember a conversation with a bunch of Academy members who don’t look like us. Had no idea who he was. He was only admitted to the Academy in 2015.
A director is fortunate if they make one film that folks remember beyond the year it’s made. Gary has multiple classics. As in more than one. More than two. More than three! And he’s broken a major industry threshold in the process.